Reader's Link - July 2010 Staff Picks Archive

Inspector Alan Banks is a familiar character to many of Peter Robinson’s readers. He is mostly known as an experienced, persistent but sometimes lone detective. We can see his career growing from Gallows View (1987) to All the Colors of Darkness (2009). However, what was he like before joining the force? Was there any family resistance against his career choice? What was his family background? How were his relationships with his parents and brother? Who was his first love? Answers to those questions might be scattered here and there in Robinson’s previous eighteen novels. But never before has he concentrated so intensely as in Going Back, an Inspector Banks novella, one of twelve stories collected in the Price of Love and Other Stories. It reminds us strongly of Henning Mankell’s The Pyramid and Four Other Kurt Wallander Mysteries (2008) which looks back to examine Wallander’s early police career and how he grew from an ordinary police officer to a stubborn, energetic and very good detective under the mentorship of an old detective.

Unlike Mankell’s The Pyramid, Robinson’s other eleven stories, collectively, do not necessarily concentrate on Alan Banks. Cornelius Jubb, for instance, presents the wrongful accusation of a murder charge against a Private First Class, the first colored person the patrons of the Nag’s Head, a local pub, had ever seen in 1943’s Yorkshire. The Ferryman’s Beautiful Daughter is another wrongful case against newcomers from San Francisco in 1969, when a ferryman’s daughter was murdered. In spite of the above variations in characters and subject matter, both Robinson and Mankell share a lot in common: the same baby-boomer generation with many impressionable memories about the 1960s, especially the year 1969. Their early lives were embedded with the seeds of doomed marriages, parental resistance against their career choices, but rewarding understanding and companionship from their children. The process of looking back is, as P.D. James writes in her Talking about Detective Fiction, “One of the most interesting aspects of Appleby (a character created by John Innes Mackintosh Stewart (1906-1994)) is the way in which he ages and matures so that readers who fall under his spell can have the satisfaction of vicariously living his life (p. 55).”

For the weekend lumberjack, details all the common uses of the chainsaw: cutting firewood, felling, limbing downed trees, even turning logs to lumber with chainsaw milling attachments. A chapter on splitting and stacking firewood is a bonus. Every procedure is amply illustrated, step by step – everything is there in pictures and words. All the many dangers are clearly described, and the authors are not shy about labeling situations best left to a professional. Chainsaw sharpening, maintenance and purchase are also covered. A very nicely done how-to book, certainly the best I’ve seen on this topic. Chainsaws are commonplace in the mountains around here, and I notice our copies of this book are seeing constant use.

Ivy is everywhere. It seems to want to overtake the whole house. And no matter how much they try to pull it out and tear it off the walls it won't be eradicated. Courtney and her family move to their new home in remote Murmur, Massachusetts and the spookiness begins. this is a young adult novel that will appeal to anyone who likes a book with chills, mysterious sounds and movements, and a bit of eco-political activism.

What does it feel like to be a load-bearing wall? A pitched roof? A door? Forrest Wilson's figures hunch (I am compacted; I am strong), stretch (be careful what you dump on top of that skinny guy), twist (ouch! torque hurts), and cluster (it takes a village to keep a building standing). Pictures worth a passel of words; and a cogent text, as well. Marketed as a children's book, but a terrific primer on architecture, physics, and engineering for all ages.

Ever wanted to just get away to a place where everyone can relax and read? The Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast is the place for you. Set on an unnamed island somewhere off Vancouver Island, check out this B & B for your next retreat. Middle aged twin brothers, Virgil and Hector, write about their lives operating the B & B and intersperse chapters written by their frequent guests. All are bibliophiles. Hector and Virgil even include lists of books to read for certain occasions. My favorite is "Hector's List of Favourite Authors for the Bath."
Time moves slowly at the Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast, but they are never bored. It is often a place of relaxation and rejuvenation. Just reading about the B & B and it's guests helped me relax and get away for a few hours.